The Peanies Print

Song Qin, a bright, cheerful and even outspoken woman with a very serious attitude towards her heart was born in Guizhou province in 1943. Her hometown is in the district inhabited by many ethnic groups whose rich customs and colorful folk art excerpted a deep influence upon her which she carried with her through her studies at the Central Academy of Art and design in Beijing. Whilst working diligently to master the basic techniques of painting, Qin also followed extensive studies of Chinese and foreign art gaining a firm grasp of decorations and design which help to lay the foundation for her watercolor painting. In her work she lays special stress on the composition and the decorative qualities of the painting by which she arrives at a distinctive style of her own. This can be clearly seen in her watercolor series entitled Flower and Plants. In still-life painting many artists concentrate their efforts on truth to nature in rendering the forms, but Qin prefers to think of the image as a whole not as a composite of individual, naturalistic parts. In her words, "I paint a vase of flowers placed before a window. The blooming flowers become a large, dense patch of dots. Above the flowers there are lines to suggest the lattice of the window. The blank, white squares conger window paper, or perhaps the sky and the courtyard be on the window. They can be whatever you imagine them to be. I don't care. I am only concerned to capture the sensation of flowers and space. The space behind allows the viewers to relax."